Speak with Joanne Bienskie for only a minute and you’ll quickly see her passion shine; her love for the outdoors, her entrepreneurial spirit, and her ambition to create more welcoming spaces for women. 

That passion led her to create Alpinistas, an outdoor retailer that’s determined to help more women connect with the natural world.

Finding opportunity in the great outdoors

“In my early career I was working in New York, snowboarding recreationally when I could. As I got better, I got the West bug in me,” she said with a laugh. “I wanted to live in a mountain town, and when I got there, my snowboarding eventually turned into backcountry snowboarding. That led me to splitboarding, which led to mountaineering… all of these more technical outdoor sports that get you off of the resorts and out into the real wilderness.

Bienskie sought out bigger peaks to summit. A lot of her skills were self-taught, but many of the other skills necessary for higher-level climbing required more technical instruction. 

“In those experiences, I was usually one of the only women,” she said. “Sometimes, it was fine; I wouldn’t have issues. But there have also been times where I was essentially overlooked by the course leader. 

“On top of that, there’s this gap in the market in terms of women helping other women learn these skills. A lot of these classes and workshops are taught by tough, macho guys wearing all their technical gear. It’s really intimidating for someone to sign up for that,” she continued. “So I recognized pretty quickly that there was a need to provide approachable, entry-level courses for women wanting to get into the outdoors.